Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to business architecture, and in particular to systems and methods for organizing a business to adapt quickly to changing conditions.
Background Description
In describing the shortfalls in current approaches to business architecture an analogy to building architecture may be used. Buildings are tangible items with distinct physical properties whereas a commercial business is a more complicated entity, combining many tangible elements such as offices, factories and equipment with intangible elements such as product designs, market knowledge and customer goodwill. Even so much can be inferred about the nature of business architecture by comparing it to the well established ‘art and science’ of buildings.
The following table compares some aspects of building architecture with their business architecture equivalent:
TABLE 1ArchitecuralElementBuilding ArchitectureBusiness ArchitectureVisionArtist'sthe Business Modelimpression/verticalelevationRequiremetsBuilding's purpose/useBusiness strategy andplansRulesPlanning regulationsRegulatory environmentSpecificationsBuilding materialTechnology, organization& standardsspecificationsand procedural standardsand guidelinesBlueprintsMany including: SiteMany including:plan, building plan,organization charts, officeplumbing diagram, wiringlayout, operationaldiagram, interior designprocedures, systems/ITspecificationplansToolingCAD/CAM drafting toolsBusiness design tools
Some rows in the table include building architecture content that can be easily related to well established and equivalent approaches that would fit a corresponding business architecture. For example the building architect's “vision” maps to a commercial enterprise's business model, “requirements” define the supporting business strategy and plans. Similarly “rules” and “specifications” can be related to various commercial standards and guidelines that regulators, trade associations and markets in general might impose. The key row in the table to compare in more detail is the use of different types of “blueprints” or model representations.
The role of a model is both to simplify the representation and then highlight or accentuate some specific aspect of its subject. For example in building architecture a wiring diagram would typically include a very simple schematic of the room layout but would then add extensive detail relating to the specification and routing of the electric wiring and electronic components.
In order to fully define some entity represented by an architecture such as a building a wide range of different models are used. To determine what models might be needed one could list all the parties that would be involved in the ‘art and science of designing and making a building’ and then select model views that would help define their associated facet of the architecture. Easy to identify are the model views that might be needed by the builders, glaziers, plumbers, electricians, decorators, and furnishers.
Then there are the less obvious perspectives of the building owners and inhabitants—buildings and their architectures are more than the physical elements, they are built with a use in mind—a room might be intended as a dining room or a lecture hall, a building might be a police station or a shopping center. Model views of ‘uses’ are harder to visualize but, with respect to a building, designs specifying a type of room and/or simple descriptions usually suffice. This association between a room and its intended use is essential to complete the overall building architecture as the finer details of the construction will be defined by the intended uses made of different rooms.
As a wiring blueprint can overlay the routing of the wiring and positioning of electronic components within the rooms of a building design, an information technology (IT) overlay can be developed showing the information flows and processing within the business components of a business design. IT solution design is one aspect of business design in the same way that electrical wiring is one specialist aspect of building design. IT design for business is clearly more complex than its electrical wiring counterpart as it deals with information rather than the simple commodity of electric power.
The example of the architecture of a building and the role of a wiring blueprint within that architecture is used to highlight the important design decision that determines what aspects of the interactions between components (and internal component operation) are suited to an IT based solution and what best remains an aspect of person to person communications. The prior art approach to this design decision is to focus on the automation role of IT, and apply automation IT to the internal execution of a business building block, and also to the collaborative functions of certain building blocks (e.g. production in manufacturing) where the interactions with other building blocks are structured and sequential or involve structured data. With respect to building blocks in the business control domain, where message traffic is conversational and the nature of interactions with other building blocks is largely asynchronous, the prior art design choice leaves the solution of business control problems to person to person communication.
Business architecture needs to include model views to address considerations analogous to the different blueprints in a building architecture for electrical wiring, plumbing, heating and the like; however, this is where existing approaches fall short. Though there is no shortage of different model representations of commercial business there are major problems associated with combining these model views into an integrated design that compares to building architecture:
Few models for intangible ingredients—unlike building design where the constituent ingredients are mostly tangible items, a significant proportion of business design involves intangible ingredients such as reputation, knowledge, and customer relations for which effective and practical model representations are scarce.
Usage is often only informally linked to ingredients—the fairly simple association of usage with a room in building architecture is not so easily handled in commercial activity. Usage views or process models are probably the dominant type of model used in business design. But the definition of the links between the steps in a process and the underlying commercial assets/ingredients that are employed are not always formal nor are they comprehensive, particularly with respect to intangible assets.
Model inconsistency—in a building architecture most model views are easily related to the general room layout of the building and hence to each other. There is no equivalent ‘layout’ of commercial business to help align models to an integrated business architecture.
Furthermore, the inconsistency of models currently being applied to business architecture conceals a more fundamental problem. While businesses grow and change, it is disruptive to the business when changes demanded by the market place make too many of its architectural models obsolete. Business requires a certain level of stability in its models; business cannot operate efficiently in the market place if too large a portion of the systems developed from these models have to be replaced when the business adapts to changed market conditions.
Given these shortfalls in prior art approaches to business architecture it is not surprising that the ‘big picture’ view and easy navigation between various specialist perspectives supported in the conventional architecture of physical buildings is not readily available to the architecture of a business. As a result, business design often ends up as a disparate collection of models, each attuned to a specific feature but without any assurance that a change in market conditions will not make many of them obsolete and without a coordinating framework to bring them together into an integrated whole that has reasonable prospects for enough stability over time that the business can concentrate its resources on serving the market place profitably, without draining resources into renewing computer supported business models that have become obsolete.
Developing approaches to business designs that yield computer support structures that are more resilient in response to changes in market conditions and more adaptable to changes in the structure of the commercial ecosystem continues to be an elusive goal. There is a need for improved methodologies in this area.